Reporting and Analyzing Energy & Metal News from Around the Globe

Main menu

The rally of crude oil prices – November 29th

November 29, 2010

The week has gone off to a good start with Thanksgiving is behind us, it time to see what are the major commodities such as crude oil, natural gas and gold did so far today:

On the news:

Ireland’s 85 Euros bailout from the European Union was agreed upon today. There are still many investors concern about the progress of this bailout, and as a result the yields of Ireland government bonds are still rising and currently reaching 9.2%. As a comparison, Greece’s government bonds yield is around 11.77%. Furthermore, investors still show a lack of confidence in Europe’s economic stability as the EUR/USD ratio dropped by 1.044% to 1.3103 as of 19.13PM GMT.

On the other hand, the US economy is showing some recovery from its stagnation, and investors show their rise in confidence as the USD is rising against most major currencies. According to Bloomberg, this is one of the reasons for the current rise in crude oil prices and perhaps other commodities such as Gold prices.

Finally, according to Bloomberg, investors are betting crude oil prices will reach the 100 USD mark. This prediction is based on option prices for December 2011 at 100 USD /barrel increasing by 14 percent on November 24th. This is also one of the reasons suggested for the recent rise in crude oilprices.

Prices:

Here is an update on the prices of main energy and precious metals commodities for November 29th:

Energy

The crude oilprice ofshort term futures (Nymex) – delivery for January 2011, as of 19.02PM GMT, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is currently traded at 85.45 USD per barrel, which represents a 1.69 increase or a 2.02 % rise compare to last business day.

The WTI spot price is trading as of 17.28PM GMT at 85.33 USD per barrel, a rise of 1.87% compare to the previous business day’s rate.

Despite the rise of crude oil prices, Natural Gasprices don’t show a similar strength and are dropping as the week begins. Since Europe is one of the biggest consumers of natural gas, it could be that the news around Ireland has a strong adverse effect on this commodity, compare to crude oil. Therefore, Natural Gasprices (the Nymex Henry Hub Future) is currently traded as of 19.02 PM GMT, at 4.22 $ MMBTU (one million BTU), a 4.16% decrease.

Metals

Gold prices still show strength as they are currently on a rise after falling at the end of last week. In particular, gold short term January delivery future (Gold 100 oz.) is currently traded at 1,366.7 USD /t. oz., a 0.18% rise or 2.4 USD /t. oz. at 19.08 PM GMT.